Donald Brown, Langford Parish Magazine
Title
Donald Brown, Langford Parish Magazine
Description
Three items, a page from the Langford Parish Magazine for March 1943, this reports the death of Donald Brown in a flying accident, the aircraft crashed into a bog and was not recovered. The second is a page from the same magazine for April 1943, this records in some detail the memorial service for Donald Brown. The third item is part of a card from Donald's parents expressing their thanks for the expressions of sympathy received.
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Type
Format
Two printed pages from a parish magazine, printed card
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Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
MBrownDA1576940-201022-02, MBrownDA1576940-201022-03, MBrownDA1576940-201022-04
Transcription
Langford Parish Magazine.
MARCH 1943.
Langford Roll of Honour.
CHRISTOPHER KEITH RUTT
24th October, 1941. Aged 22 years.
CLAUD KILBY
Aged 23 years.
DONALD ARTHUR BROWN
29th January, 1943. Aged 20 years.
A new name – the third – has now to be added to our Langford Roll of Honour. A wave of sympathy has passed through the village, and all our thoughts have turned to the home of the parents and family of Donald in their tragic bereavement. There are circumstances connected with his sudden passing which are almost unique in England. Donald had moved to a fresh aerodrome on the Wednesday and went on a non-operational flight on the Friday. Then about half-past three on that afternoon, January 29th, the accident happened, and the heavy craft dropped like a stone from a great height into bog-land. Naturally everyone thought it was only a matter of time before the plane was recovered and the six comrades brought out. But unhappily those first hopes were not realised, and the possibility of the machine not being salvaged had to be considered. There is no doubt that every endeavour was made by the authorities. But the plane sank out of sight, and though persevering efforts were continued the sad message had to be sent to the family that all hope of recovery must be given up. This was a still further grief to the parents, as it was their great wish that the mortal remains should be buried in our churchyard. But that consolation is denied them, and it is understood that the site of the accident will be consecrated and a funeral service arranged there. That will be somewhat more satisfying than being buried in a foreign land or being lost in the sea.
A memorial service will be held on Sunday afternoon, February 28th, and though these words are written before then we are sure a very large congregation will express their sympathy and pay their honour to one who has laid down his life for his friends. I remember Donald as a Sunday School boy and a member of our choir, and I was privileged to present him for confirmation at St. Paul’s, Bedford, on Sunday, December 12th, 1934[sic]. It will also be a happy memory for me that he was at Holy Communion with his sister early in December last.
This sudden death, as it were in our very midst, is an illustration of the vast number of lives which are being poured out by soldiers and sailors and airmen of nation after nation. We can so easily become numbed by the mass of suffering. We can miss the tremendous challenge from every life as a self-sacrifice. But when one who belongs to our village gives his all we ought to be almost haunted by the well-known words: “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price. What shall we render unto God and man to show our thankfulness.” We need to be afraid, let alone ashamed, to live a life that is useless and selfish and merely animal. We can pray for a spirit of self-dedication to the highest we know. That and that alone will match the self-dedication to a great cause which was the mark of Donald Brown in the last years of his life.
Langford Roll of Service.
Last month each magazine subscriber received a card. It contains two prayers and the names of the men and women of the parish who are serving. We do hope this card will be placed where it can be easily seen in the home – the names looked through and the prayers offered.
There is space for the addition of fresh names and we hope each month to give these names. Will you please write on card these extra names? If any friend or neighbour would like the list there are some to be had for the asking.
Please add the following fresh names:
TOM CHESSUM, DICK BROWN, WILFRID WRIGHT
FRIENDLY TALKS TO YOUNG MOTHERS
By the Rector of Bermondsey, Rev. L.G. Fisher.
3. – Teaching the Child to Pray.
How few parents to-day realise fully their great responsibility in themselves teaching their children about God: to know Him, to know the Bible, and to teach them to say their prayers. Yet most surely it is a mother’s and father’s job to do this. Every child has the right to learn first from father and mother the meaning of prayer, that talking with God who is our Father, and bringing to Him the little things and the little details which make up our lives.
The best way to teach a child to pray is to kneel down yourself in the presence of the child while it is still quite young, to say a simple prayer aloud to God, remembering to ask His blessing for the child. If this is done regularly, every day, the child will soon begin to ask questions. “What are you doing, Mummy? Who are you talking to?” Then it is comparatively simple to tell the child you are talking to God, who is the great Father of us all, and who is there though we cannot see Him. Soon the child will probably ask if he can say a little prayer. Then it should be a nightly custom for mother to say his prayers with him; perhaps first telling some simple story about Jesus.
There are just one or two things, however, that we must be careful of. When we tell him that God is always with the child though he cannot see Him, we must make it very clear to the child that God is loving and good and kind. Never use God as a threat to the child, or else it may be that he will wake up one night in the darkness and be afraid. The heart and thought of a little child should go out in love and trust towards the Heavenly Father.
THE PARISH MAGAZINE.
You who are good enough to take our magazine each month may be glad to read these points:-
1. – The Printers. We are most fortunate in our firm as they have enough paper to guarantee the magazine throughout the year. The very drastic rationing which has been laid upon every printer in England has naturally reduced all their work and they have to make their limited material go a long way. I should like, in your name, to thank them.
2. – Finance. The magazine receipts for 1942 from sales and advertisements came to £25 18s. 7d. The total cost of printing – of the Home Words” insets, etc. – was £27 12s. 8d. This means a loss on the year of £1 14s. 1d. This would have ben [sic] larger still if many of you had not kindly paid 2 1/2d. each month. If all our subscribers could do this during 1943 we should very nearly make ends meet.
3. – Advertisers. We owe these our gratitude also, because without their help it would be impossible to provide a magazine at all. We can express our thanks by becoming their customers so far as this is possible
[page break]
Langford Parish Magazine.
APRIL 1943.
Langford Roll of Honour.
CHRISTOPHER KEITH RUTT
24th October, 1941. Aged 22 years.
CLAUD KILBY
26th November, 1941. Aged 23 years.
DONALD ARTHUR BROWN
29th January, 1943. Aged 20 years.
A Memorial Service for Donald Brown was held in our church on Sunday afternoon, February 28th. A very large and representative congregation indicated the wide and deep sympathy of the whole village with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Brown and their family. The circumstances of the tragic death are almost unparalleled in our homeland and that gave added emotion to the service. A large contingent of the Home Guard (of which Donald was one of the first members) paid their honour to a former comrade. The hymns chosen were “Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us,” “Jesus lives! thy terrors now, can, O Death, no more appal us,” “For all the saints,” and “Abide with me.” In addition to a Scripture lesson the Vicar read part of a letter written by a young airman to his mother in 1940. It was only to be sent to her if he died on duty. The mother gave consent to it being published, and its simple and direct words have been most uplifting to very many. One can imagine Donald writing in a similar strain such words from that letter as these:
“It will comfort you to know that my role in this war has been of the greatest importance. . . . I shall have done my duty to the utmost of my ability. No man can do more, and no one calling himself a man could do less. . . . The home front will still have to stand united for years after the war is won. . . . My earthly mission is fulfilled.”
The address was based on the words of our Lord, “God is not a God of dead people, but of living people, for all live unto Him.” When a great Scotsman was dying his friends asked him what feeling was first and most in his mind. He answered in two words, “Intense expectation.” He felt sure he was at the beginning of something very very good. He had a sure and certain hope that the best was yet to be. We owe that hope to Jesus Christ. So for the Christian death is not the end but rather the beginning; for he shares in the ever-living life of God. We cannot imagine the Everlasting Father being content with our sonship if it lasted a few years only. This hope is assured to us by the satisfying words of Jesus. He wanted his earthly friends to be with Him in future glory, “Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” He wanted to meet His friends again. He so wanted our lasting fellowship and love that He spoke His immortal words about the Father’s House which He went to prepare for those who love Him. So He told us to look forward to something better and fuller and richer than any life here. He gave new meaning to the old psalm: “Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” So in Christ we have the hope of glory for our loved ones who believe in Him. So I say in His name about that one we are honouring to-day: “Donald is not dead. He is alive, wonderfully alive, more gloriously alive than he has ever been.” Try and think of him as passing into that life in the same spirit as the Scottish Christian and saying to those most closely touched by this sudden bereavement: “I am looking forward with intense expectation to this new life I have begun. I am just beginning to live really. I will see you again and our hearts shall rejoice together.” And to us who live on here the call comes to match his self-sacrifice by our own. Donald is one of a great multitude of the choicest youth of this and many lands who have given all they had. Their self-giving says afresh to us, “You are not your own; you are bought with a price. Glorify God in your body and spirit, which are His.”
EASTER SNUDAY [sic], 1943.
This year Easter Day is on April 25th – as late as it can be. Indeed it is a very unusual date, because during the four hundred years between 1700 and 2100 it only comes four times – in 1734, 1886, 1943 and 2038. The earliest possible day is March 22nd, so that there is as much as five weeks difference between the earliest and the latest possible days. It has something to do with a moon. There is [sic] very strong reasons for having Easter fixed to a regular date. The second Sunday in April has been suggested.
FRIENDLY TALKS TO YOUNG MOTHERS
By the Rector of Bermondsey, Rev. L.G. FISHER.
4. – Training the child in the knowledge of God.
Here again is one of the parents’ privileges and responsibilities. It is from the parent that the child should be taught first about Jesus, and of course the simplest and best way is to make it a regular daily custom to tell a Gospel story before the child’s prayer-time. We must be careful to pick out those stories which a child can more easily understand. Always throw the emphasis of the story upon the goodness and the kindness of Jesus; not emphasising the disease or the sin from which the other person in the story suffered. We can, for instance, tell the story of Christmas, of the children coming to Jesus, the healing of the leper, the feeding of the five thousand, picking out the little boy and the five loaves and two small fishes.
Soon the child will ask all sorts of questions: Does God love my Teddy? Is God in the train? Does He wear glasses? Why can’t I see Him? We must be very careful how we answer questions. We must remember they are serious in the child’s mind. However funny the questions may seem to us, we must never laugh at them. We must treat them seriously too.
A child must never be put off with some silly reply, which afterwards it will find out was untrue. It should always be told as much of the truth as possible, and nothing but the truth about God and about life. All our teaching must try to bring to the child the idea that God is very good, very loving, very beautiful, and that He wants us to be like Jesus.
SALVAGE.
The good response all through the parish to the appeal for salvage has brought a most valuable contribution to the war effort. Naturally, when the first freshness of saving paper and bones and rags, etc. has lost its edge, we are inclined to ease off. But the demand for all kinds of salvage material is just as urgent and imperative as ever, and the Rural District Council has asked me to encourage householders to support the efforts of the W.V.S. in their campaign. None of us have as much to offer as we had earlier on, but we can persevere in adding our bits to the pile from Langford.
[page break]
[italics] Mr. & Mrs. A.H. Brown and Family return thanks for your kind thoughts and sympathy shown to them in their sorrow and loss of their son, Sgt. D.A. Brown. [/italics]
[italics] Bays Farm, Langford, Beds. Jan. 29th 1943. [/italics]
MARCH 1943.
Langford Roll of Honour.
CHRISTOPHER KEITH RUTT
24th October, 1941. Aged 22 years.
CLAUD KILBY
Aged 23 years.
DONALD ARTHUR BROWN
29th January, 1943. Aged 20 years.
A new name – the third – has now to be added to our Langford Roll of Honour. A wave of sympathy has passed through the village, and all our thoughts have turned to the home of the parents and family of Donald in their tragic bereavement. There are circumstances connected with his sudden passing which are almost unique in England. Donald had moved to a fresh aerodrome on the Wednesday and went on a non-operational flight on the Friday. Then about half-past three on that afternoon, January 29th, the accident happened, and the heavy craft dropped like a stone from a great height into bog-land. Naturally everyone thought it was only a matter of time before the plane was recovered and the six comrades brought out. But unhappily those first hopes were not realised, and the possibility of the machine not being salvaged had to be considered. There is no doubt that every endeavour was made by the authorities. But the plane sank out of sight, and though persevering efforts were continued the sad message had to be sent to the family that all hope of recovery must be given up. This was a still further grief to the parents, as it was their great wish that the mortal remains should be buried in our churchyard. But that consolation is denied them, and it is understood that the site of the accident will be consecrated and a funeral service arranged there. That will be somewhat more satisfying than being buried in a foreign land or being lost in the sea.
A memorial service will be held on Sunday afternoon, February 28th, and though these words are written before then we are sure a very large congregation will express their sympathy and pay their honour to one who has laid down his life for his friends. I remember Donald as a Sunday School boy and a member of our choir, and I was privileged to present him for confirmation at St. Paul’s, Bedford, on Sunday, December 12th, 1934[sic]. It will also be a happy memory for me that he was at Holy Communion with his sister early in December last.
This sudden death, as it were in our very midst, is an illustration of the vast number of lives which are being poured out by soldiers and sailors and airmen of nation after nation. We can so easily become numbed by the mass of suffering. We can miss the tremendous challenge from every life as a self-sacrifice. But when one who belongs to our village gives his all we ought to be almost haunted by the well-known words: “Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price. What shall we render unto God and man to show our thankfulness.” We need to be afraid, let alone ashamed, to live a life that is useless and selfish and merely animal. We can pray for a spirit of self-dedication to the highest we know. That and that alone will match the self-dedication to a great cause which was the mark of Donald Brown in the last years of his life.
Langford Roll of Service.
Last month each magazine subscriber received a card. It contains two prayers and the names of the men and women of the parish who are serving. We do hope this card will be placed where it can be easily seen in the home – the names looked through and the prayers offered.
There is space for the addition of fresh names and we hope each month to give these names. Will you please write on card these extra names? If any friend or neighbour would like the list there are some to be had for the asking.
Please add the following fresh names:
TOM CHESSUM, DICK BROWN, WILFRID WRIGHT
FRIENDLY TALKS TO YOUNG MOTHERS
By the Rector of Bermondsey, Rev. L.G. Fisher.
3. – Teaching the Child to Pray.
How few parents to-day realise fully their great responsibility in themselves teaching their children about God: to know Him, to know the Bible, and to teach them to say their prayers. Yet most surely it is a mother’s and father’s job to do this. Every child has the right to learn first from father and mother the meaning of prayer, that talking with God who is our Father, and bringing to Him the little things and the little details which make up our lives.
The best way to teach a child to pray is to kneel down yourself in the presence of the child while it is still quite young, to say a simple prayer aloud to God, remembering to ask His blessing for the child. If this is done regularly, every day, the child will soon begin to ask questions. “What are you doing, Mummy? Who are you talking to?” Then it is comparatively simple to tell the child you are talking to God, who is the great Father of us all, and who is there though we cannot see Him. Soon the child will probably ask if he can say a little prayer. Then it should be a nightly custom for mother to say his prayers with him; perhaps first telling some simple story about Jesus.
There are just one or two things, however, that we must be careful of. When we tell him that God is always with the child though he cannot see Him, we must make it very clear to the child that God is loving and good and kind. Never use God as a threat to the child, or else it may be that he will wake up one night in the darkness and be afraid. The heart and thought of a little child should go out in love and trust towards the Heavenly Father.
THE PARISH MAGAZINE.
You who are good enough to take our magazine each month may be glad to read these points:-
1. – The Printers. We are most fortunate in our firm as they have enough paper to guarantee the magazine throughout the year. The very drastic rationing which has been laid upon every printer in England has naturally reduced all their work and they have to make their limited material go a long way. I should like, in your name, to thank them.
2. – Finance. The magazine receipts for 1942 from sales and advertisements came to £25 18s. 7d. The total cost of printing – of the Home Words” insets, etc. – was £27 12s. 8d. This means a loss on the year of £1 14s. 1d. This would have ben [sic] larger still if many of you had not kindly paid 2 1/2d. each month. If all our subscribers could do this during 1943 we should very nearly make ends meet.
3. – Advertisers. We owe these our gratitude also, because without their help it would be impossible to provide a magazine at all. We can express our thanks by becoming their customers so far as this is possible
[page break]
Langford Parish Magazine.
APRIL 1943.
Langford Roll of Honour.
CHRISTOPHER KEITH RUTT
24th October, 1941. Aged 22 years.
CLAUD KILBY
26th November, 1941. Aged 23 years.
DONALD ARTHUR BROWN
29th January, 1943. Aged 20 years.
A Memorial Service for Donald Brown was held in our church on Sunday afternoon, February 28th. A very large and representative congregation indicated the wide and deep sympathy of the whole village with Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Brown and their family. The circumstances of the tragic death are almost unparalleled in our homeland and that gave added emotion to the service. A large contingent of the Home Guard (of which Donald was one of the first members) paid their honour to a former comrade. The hymns chosen were “Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us,” “Jesus lives! thy terrors now, can, O Death, no more appal us,” “For all the saints,” and “Abide with me.” In addition to a Scripture lesson the Vicar read part of a letter written by a young airman to his mother in 1940. It was only to be sent to her if he died on duty. The mother gave consent to it being published, and its simple and direct words have been most uplifting to very many. One can imagine Donald writing in a similar strain such words from that letter as these:
“It will comfort you to know that my role in this war has been of the greatest importance. . . . I shall have done my duty to the utmost of my ability. No man can do more, and no one calling himself a man could do less. . . . The home front will still have to stand united for years after the war is won. . . . My earthly mission is fulfilled.”
The address was based on the words of our Lord, “God is not a God of dead people, but of living people, for all live unto Him.” When a great Scotsman was dying his friends asked him what feeling was first and most in his mind. He answered in two words, “Intense expectation.” He felt sure he was at the beginning of something very very good. He had a sure and certain hope that the best was yet to be. We owe that hope to Jesus Christ. So for the Christian death is not the end but rather the beginning; for he shares in the ever-living life of God. We cannot imagine the Everlasting Father being content with our sonship if it lasted a few years only. This hope is assured to us by the satisfying words of Jesus. He wanted his earthly friends to be with Him in future glory, “Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” He wanted to meet His friends again. He so wanted our lasting fellowship and love that He spoke His immortal words about the Father’s House which He went to prepare for those who love Him. So He told us to look forward to something better and fuller and richer than any life here. He gave new meaning to the old psalm: “Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” So in Christ we have the hope of glory for our loved ones who believe in Him. So I say in His name about that one we are honouring to-day: “Donald is not dead. He is alive, wonderfully alive, more gloriously alive than he has ever been.” Try and think of him as passing into that life in the same spirit as the Scottish Christian and saying to those most closely touched by this sudden bereavement: “I am looking forward with intense expectation to this new life I have begun. I am just beginning to live really. I will see you again and our hearts shall rejoice together.” And to us who live on here the call comes to match his self-sacrifice by our own. Donald is one of a great multitude of the choicest youth of this and many lands who have given all they had. Their self-giving says afresh to us, “You are not your own; you are bought with a price. Glorify God in your body and spirit, which are His.”
EASTER SNUDAY [sic], 1943.
This year Easter Day is on April 25th – as late as it can be. Indeed it is a very unusual date, because during the four hundred years between 1700 and 2100 it only comes four times – in 1734, 1886, 1943 and 2038. The earliest possible day is March 22nd, so that there is as much as five weeks difference between the earliest and the latest possible days. It has something to do with a moon. There is [sic] very strong reasons for having Easter fixed to a regular date. The second Sunday in April has been suggested.
FRIENDLY TALKS TO YOUNG MOTHERS
By the Rector of Bermondsey, Rev. L.G. FISHER.
4. – Training the child in the knowledge of God.
Here again is one of the parents’ privileges and responsibilities. It is from the parent that the child should be taught first about Jesus, and of course the simplest and best way is to make it a regular daily custom to tell a Gospel story before the child’s prayer-time. We must be careful to pick out those stories which a child can more easily understand. Always throw the emphasis of the story upon the goodness and the kindness of Jesus; not emphasising the disease or the sin from which the other person in the story suffered. We can, for instance, tell the story of Christmas, of the children coming to Jesus, the healing of the leper, the feeding of the five thousand, picking out the little boy and the five loaves and two small fishes.
Soon the child will ask all sorts of questions: Does God love my Teddy? Is God in the train? Does He wear glasses? Why can’t I see Him? We must be very careful how we answer questions. We must remember they are serious in the child’s mind. However funny the questions may seem to us, we must never laugh at them. We must treat them seriously too.
A child must never be put off with some silly reply, which afterwards it will find out was untrue. It should always be told as much of the truth as possible, and nothing but the truth about God and about life. All our teaching must try to bring to the child the idea that God is very good, very loving, very beautiful, and that He wants us to be like Jesus.
SALVAGE.
The good response all through the parish to the appeal for salvage has brought a most valuable contribution to the war effort. Naturally, when the first freshness of saving paper and bones and rags, etc. has lost its edge, we are inclined to ease off. But the demand for all kinds of salvage material is just as urgent and imperative as ever, and the Rural District Council has asked me to encourage householders to support the efforts of the W.V.S. in their campaign. None of us have as much to offer as we had earlier on, but we can persevere in adding our bits to the pile from Langford.
[page break]
[italics] Mr. & Mrs. A.H. Brown and Family return thanks for your kind thoughts and sympathy shown to them in their sorrow and loss of their son, Sgt. D.A. Brown. [/italics]
[italics] Bays Farm, Langford, Beds. Jan. 29th 1943. [/italics]
Collection
Citation
“Donald Brown, Langford Parish Magazine,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 15, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/36864.